Leading Edge R&D:

AstraZeneca TO USE CellSpace KNOWLEDGE MINER

Cellomics Inc announced that AstraZeneca has agreed to a license to evaluate CellSpace Knowledge Miner, a powerful new class of bioinformatics tool, in their pharmaceutical research programs. No details of the license terms were available at the time of the release.

"Cellomics is very proud to have a major international research-based pharmaceutical company such as AstraZeneca evaluate our technology," stated Dr. Ian Shaw, Cellomics' senior vice president of Commercial Development. "We are proud to assist AstraZeneca in its commitment to the research and development of their high-quality pipeline of new products."

CellSpace is a knowledge mining system that continuously monitors the research literature of molecular and cellular biology, automatically extracting and databasing information regarding relationships between molecules that are at the heart of biomedical research. CellSpace computers continuously analyze the U.S. National Library of Medicine's Medline database, performing proprietary statistical correlation analyses regarding the organisms, cell types, biological processes and molecules reported in biomedical research literature.

By using CellSpace, molecular biologists and drug discovery researchers are instantly able to access insights that previously required days or weeks of literature review. With CellSpace, users can determine the biological functions most commonly shared by a cluster of gene products, which is useful for interpreting cDNA microarray data. CellSpace can also determine which protein-protein interactions observed in a two-hybrid screen have not previously been reported in the literature, list all the molecular targets implicated in a disease as well as the drugs known to act upon them, and more. The answer a user receives is much more than a simple annotation retrieved from a curated database; rather, it is a consensus derived from more than one million research publications. All answers are linked back to the reports from which they were derived, enabling the user to judge their accuracy. New research literature is automatically analyzed every two weeks, ensuring that CellSpace is always up-to-date. If an update occurs that is relevant to his query, the user can be notified via e-mail immediately. CellSpace is available via the World Wide Web at cellspace.cellomics.com.

AstraZeneca is a major international healthcare business engaged in the research, development, manufacture and marketing of prescription pharmaceuticals, and the supply of healthcare services. It is one of the top five pharmaceutical companies in the world with healthcare sales of over $16.4 billion and leading positions in sales of gastrointestinal, oncology, anesthesia (including pain management), cardiovascular, central nervous system (CNS) and respiratory products.

Cellomics Inc is pioneering the field of cellular knowledge extraction. Its unique technology, referred to as High Content Screening, integrates fluorescent reagents, kits, cell lines, multiparametric assays, HCS instrumentation (both fixed end-point and kinetics systems), informatics and cellular bioinformatics tools used to achieve a flexible, broadly applicable platform for users in the life sciences industry. This automated platform, when applied to lead optimization, predictive toxicology and new target validation, is proving to reduce the "idea-to-clinic" cycle time in drug discovery, while increasing the probability of the therapeutic success of leads. Currently, Cellomics' proprietary ArrayScan HCS Systems are in use at multiple sites within the top ten pharmaceutical companies in the world, as well as several additional leading pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, and academic centers.

Contact Cellomics Inc, Drew Patrick, 412-770-2200, dpatrick@cellomics.com.